Blame it on the foreign hand
Centre's motive behind the unseen "foreign hand" theory is to polarise the development discourse
Second disempowerment
Tribals have lost their decision-making power twice; first to the state then to the Maoists
गरीबी और आतंकवाद
जम्मू एवं कश्मीर में आतंकवाद की समस्या के समाधान के लिए फौजी ताकत का इस्तेमाल समझदारी भरा कदम नहीं है
Boss, the real beehive!
Rahul Gandhi’s idea of governance needs fresh focus. How about more autonomy to nearly 240,000 panchayats?
The countdown begins
Irrespective of being left or right in orientation, the next elections will be about rural issues
'Thank You' : The expression of gratitude is now propaganda tool in an elected sphere
The Indian government thanking its chief executive for a decision which is a right of the citizen makes a point: The government and the prime …
Fifteenth Finance Commission: Over Rs. 4.36 lakh crore for local governments
Local governments will get special health grants
Sabhas we listen to
On the 30th year of Panchayati Raj, the rise of the Gram Sabha holds the hope of making local-government accountable
The national local elections
Bangladesh loses an opportunity to revive its most important local government—upazilla parishad—as competing national parties turn …
Betrayed
Nepal's forest bureaucracy prepares for the funeral of the much-hailed community forest management programme
Brazilian lessons for Modi
Dilma Rousseff's re-election as president is a lesson on facing development challenges in an unequal economy
US elections 2020: Trumped by hunger
US presidential candidates aren’t known to talk hunger; but they do talk inequality. This year, the pandemic and racial polarisation made …
Why the data block?
India does not know how many people are poor or who they are; no consumer expenditure survey has been done in the last decade. We also do not …
India’s homemakers being wooed by political parties is path-breaking
The socio-political message of parties promising cash value to homemakers is a recognition of women’s work in a typical male-dominated …
भारत में आधे बच्चे हैं गरीब
ये बच्चे मूलभूत मानव विकास की जरूरतों से वंचित हैं। यह सर्वेक्षण यह भी बताता है कि बच्चों को केंद्र में रखकर चलाए जा ...
Elected democracy: democratic enough?
Global trends reveal that people are no longer finding this popular governance mechanism effective
Consigned to flames
Central and state authorities fiddle while underground coalfields burn in Jharia in the state of Jharkhand
A state in chaos
The human cost of the cyclone in Orissa is very high. So is the cost of the damage to the environment. The failure of the state machinery in …
On the world’s largest and longest UBI experiment
The experiment is ongoing in 'sequestered' 200 villages in Kenya for the next eight years and India has some lessons as it plans for a similar scheme
Forget 2022, more than 110 million Indians would remain poor forever
The next generation of the current poor Indians has high probability of remaining poor as well. Lack of access to resources like forests and …
The curious case of panchayats in Delhi
The Nagar Swaraj Bill will usher in decentralised governance in the city state, but what happened to rural panchayats?
Orphaned by apathy
Hidden from the outside world, this is the plight of the Van Taungiyas. They were hired during the British rule as resident labourers to plant …
New votebank on the block: Beneficiaries over rights-holders
Narendra Modi’s stress on governing via welfare schemes is antithetical to a rights-based approach
Mr Modi, you made the pandemic another event
Prime Minister's address to the nation is insensitive to situation, barring fleeting mentions of economic bailout
जाति विमर्श में प्राकृतिक संसाधन
जाति व्यवस्था के खिलाफ संघर्ष प्राकृतिक संसाधनों पर नियंत्रण के सवाल को लेकर छिड़ना चाहिए, न कि पिछड़ों की आजीविका को लेकर